Hello, Jeffrey, Sylvia, et al.
A number of correspondents in the last week or so have written about
noun-incorporation.
Usually, when linguists talk about "incorporating", they mean that
the "object" of a "transitive" "verb" gets "incorporated" into the
verb, making a new word.
So, for instance, instead of saying "The demon gnawed his soul",
the language could say "The demon soul-gnawed him".
That was what I meant by "Incorporating the Patient into the Verb" in
my title.
But, it is also possible to say, in some languages, --- I think in
some of the same languages --- something like "His soul was demon-
gnawed."
This is what I meant by "Incorporating the Agent into the Verb" in my
title.
[QUESTIONS]
1. How synonymous are the terms "incorporating languages"
and "polysynthetic languages"?
2. How co-extensive are the two types of languages?
3. Do ergative incorporating languages lean toward agent-
incorporation the way accusative incorporating languages lean toward
patient-incorporation?
4. What questions do you think I should have asked instead of these?
5. a. How common are natlangs attesting both agent-incorporation and
patient-incorporation? b. How common are these two phenomena (should
we call them "processes"?) in these languages? c. What languages have
a lot of verbs which can have both the A and the P incorporated?
--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Jeffrey Jones <jsjonesmiami@Y...>
wrote:
> On Sun, 25 Sep 2005 23:55:01 -0400, Jeffrey Jones
<jsjonesmiami@Y...>
> wrote:
>
> >On Sun, 25 Sep 2005 11:08:40 -0700, Sylvia Sotomayor
<terjemar@G...>
> >wrote:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >> I looked.
> >
> >Hi Sylvia,
> >Your comments are timely -- this is the last night I'll have
regular
> >internet access. And my computer will be going into storage
tomorrow.
> >
> >> I like the way you define all your terms, even if the
definitions are
> >> sktetchy. I need to do more of that.
> >
> >I do try to define things, because I sometimes make up my own
terms or
> >misuse existing terms or because not everybody reading it will
know the
> >terms.
> >
> >> I also like that 'YemIs has incorporation. I hope you'll let me
know
> >> when you have something more to put into that section.
Incorporation is
> >> one of the few cool things I haven't put into Kelen, so I have to
> >> experience it vicariously through other conlangs. :-)
> >
> >The reason I haven't said much is because I don't know enough about
> >incorporation in general to figure out how it works in 'Yemls.
When/if I
> >come up with anything less vague, I'll definitely let you know,
when I can.
>
> I just reread the grammar, and I'm surprised I was able to say even
that
> much. I still don't understand natlang incorporation very well. But
> in 'Yemls, let's say we have words for hunt, with Argument
Structure A P c,
> and for tigers, with a single argument (the subject). If (tigers)
is
> incorporated by (hunt), we have (hunt-tigers), with *proposed*
Argument
> Structure A - c. In this proposal, the P argument for (hunt) is
deleted,
> not just the redundant subject argument of (tigers). No arguments
have been
> added. Now, the P-argument could be restored with the {A} prefix (I
think).
> Then you could say something like "I hunt-tigers Fred."
>
> Just my current thoughts. I don't when I'll get back to all this ...
>
> Jeff
>
> >
> >>-Sylvia
> >>
> >>On 9/20/05, Jeffrey Jones <jsjonesmiami@y...> wrote:
> >>> If anybody besides Tom C has looked at this, I've uploaded some
more
> >>> material and made some changes. I expect that will be it for a
while.
> >>>
> >>> Happy Conlanging!
> >>> --
> >>> Jeff Jones
> >>>
> >>> On Mon, 12 Sep 2005 19:22:52 -0400, Jeffrey Jones
> ><jsjonesmiami@Y...>
> >>> wrote:
> >>> >
> >>> > For those who don't mind the appearance of upper/mixed case
letters :)
perfectives, and
> >one
> >>> > or two temporal point of reference suffixes. These single-
mora
> suffixes
> >>> > each take the place of some hypothetical adverb. The suffix
to make
> >>> > nominoids act like static verboids has been modified.
> >>> >
> >>> > Incidentally, one of the things that helped me clean up the
pages was
> >>> > settling on grammatical terms, although the ones I used may be
> >completely
> >>> > non-standard.
> >>> >
> >>> > --
> >>> > Nameless
> >>> > {i: ViDf d But YOSELTfTV-i.} "I saw that person who has never
to this
> >day
> >>> > sung for me."
> >>>
>
>>====================================================================
=====
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>--
> >>Sylvia Sotomayor
> >>terjemar@g...
> >>www.terjemar.net
>
>>====================================================================
=====
>
>=====================================================================
====